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Saturday, September 2, 2017

September 2nd...This Day in History (Now with links to other events)

First ATM opens for business 1969

On this day in 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine
(ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical
Bank in Rockville Center, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionize the
banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basic
financial transactions. By the 1980s, these money machines had become
widely popular and handled many of the functions previously performed by
human tellers, such as check deposits and money transfers between
accounts. Today, ATMs are as indispensable to most people as cell phones
and e-mail.

Several inventors worked on early versions of a cash-dispensing
machine, but Don Wetzel, an executive at Docutel, a Dallas company that
developed automated baggage-handling equipment, is generally credited as
coming up with the idea for the modern ATM. Wetzel reportedly conceived
of the concept while waiting on line at a bank. The ATM that debuted in
New York in 1969 was only able to give out cash, but in 1971, an ATM
that could handle multiple functions, including providing customers’
account balances, was introduced.

ATMs eventually expanded beyond the confines of banks and today can
be found everywhere from gas stations to convenience stores to cruise
ships. There is even an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Non-banks
lease the machines (so-called “off premise” ATMs) or own them outright.

Today there are well over 1 million ATMs around the world, with a new
one added approximately every five minutes. It’s estimated that more
than 170 Americans over the age of 18 had an ATM card in 2005 and used
it six to eight times a month. Not surprisingly, ATMs get their busiest
workouts on Fridays.

In the 1990s, banks began charging fees to use ATMs, a profitable
move for them and an annoying one for consumers. Consumers were also
faced with an increase in ATM crimes and scams. Robbers preyed on people
using money machines in poorly lit or otherwise unsafe locations, and
criminals also devised ways to steal customers’ PINs (personal
identification numbers), even setting up fake money machines to capture
the information. In response, city and state governments passed
legislation such as New York’s ATM Safety Act in 1996, which required
banks to install such things as surveillance cameras, reflective mirrors
and locked entryways for their ATMs.

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